E-mail massaging systems are widely used by businesses and individuals throughout the world. E-mail systems allow a user to send electronic messages to other users, and to receive electronic messages from other users. An e-mail system can be configured to provide massaging services to users connected to a local area network (LAN), and can be configured to allow users to send/receive messages to/from users outside the LAN via an external network such as the Internet. E-mail systems also allow users to save, copy, and forward messages received over the e-mail system.
The ease with which e-mail systems allow users to save, copy, and forward messages has had the unintended consequence of hampering document retention policies. Typically, a document retention policy is implemented by a business to insure that documents generated or received by the business are retained for a specified period of time and then destroyed. Moreover, different document retention periods may be specified for different types of documents. One of the goals of a document retention policy is to provide a systematic method for retaining and destroying documents so that the business can identify with some certainty which classes of documents from a given time period still exist.
An effective document retention policy is also valuable in the context of litigation. In such a context it is important that a business has a consistent policy regarding the retention and destruction of documents, and that the business implements this policy. For example, if a business' document retention policy states that letters are to be retained for a period of three years, and if it consistently follows this policy, it will be less vulnerable to a charge that a particular 5-year-old letter was destroyed because the letter was harmful to the business' litigation position. In addition, if the document retention policy is not consistently followed, and only some documents from a particular time period are discarded, it is possible that the remaining documents will provide an incomplete or inaccurate picture of events occurring during that time.
Systems that enforce document retention policies with regard to computer files are well known. Typically, these systems periodically scan the files in the network and delete files which were created prior to a specified date. Since such systems operate on a network, however, they cannot delete files which are stored on the hard drives of individual computers. In order to access these files, a document retention program must be installed on each individual computer. However, even if the document retention system is installed on each individual computer, the system will still be unable to delete files that are stored on floppy disks or other external media. Moreover, these systems cannot delete files which have been transferred to computers outside of the network via e-mail. Thus, for example, files which have been transferred to an employee's home computer or laptop, or to a third party, will not be deleted by conventional document retention systems.